Facebook Targets Small Business Owners With New Features

Facebook, after a less than stellar 8 days on the NYSE, is taking a step back from the big lights and glitz and glamor and is focusing on the small business owners. Small business owners make up so much of the marketplace today and while it may feel as if there is a bit of over saturation for those companies that help small business owners, there are still too many lagging behind. Facebook was one of them.

Small business owners whose marketing budget does not have a line item for a community director are at a disadvantage as they are not able to hire the third party that will be able provide them will all the features that are afforded to bigger companies. It is an age old problem as regardless of how many hats you wear each day as a small business owner, there are always limitations. Especially online and in the social spectrum as there are third parties that are creating some unbelievable tools for analytics but they are out of reach for many of the small business owners.

Facebook Targets Small Business Owners

Facebook this week had made some highly applauded changes to the company pages. These welcomed changes are a big deal for the DIY small business owner as the functionality that has been afforded to other companies through hiring third parties, has now become available to them for FREE. The changes are not going to save a business nor are they going to attract drones of new customers. They are time management features that allows for better organization and more frequent postings to promote visibility and interaction.

Facebook Introduces Administrator Levels

The administrator levels is not necessary a big deal for the DIY small business owner however, for those that are able to budget and have assistance with their Facebook page, this is a big deal. Control of the entire page is not given to another person. Actually, Facebook has defined the roles and levels to better assist the small business owner with relinquishing some control but with limitations.

Facebook Administrator Roles

1. Manager. The manager has full control of the page from creating posts & ads, editing the page & apps, commenting, deleting comments, sending messages and viewing Facebook insights.

2. Content Creator. The content creator is one step away from the manager and has a lot of authority however, it cannot manage the admin roles.

3. Moderator. The moderator can send messages, respond to messages and delete comments. They are unable to create new posts.

4. Advertiser. The advertiser can create ads and view insights.

5. Insights Analyst. The insights analyst can review and analyze the data only. This is the lowest of authority but it is probably one of the most important. You can create content and ads all day but if no one is delving in to the data, a lot is being lost. Are you posting and reaching your target market or just random people who liked your video?

These administrator roles are important when we think about moving forward with how companies utilize Facebook for their marketing efforts. There is a lot of data that that small business owners can capture and act upon to better serve their target market. Allowing for them to set a specific role within Facebook is a step in the right direction.

NOTE: Any new administrators added, by default, are managers. You must go and manually change their role.

Facebook Unveils Post Scheduling Functionality

Scheduling posts! How could you? Automate – ugh never! Well not so fast here. As indicated above, the new features are time management features. Scheduling posts is managing the time. This is not an autopilot feature that will allow for the admin to schedule the postings for the month and never come back but act as if there is a human sitting there. We know better. Scheduling does help many of the small business owners as they can sit late at night and schedule a posting for when their target market is most active and accepting of their posting. Without scheduling, the post probably would not be seen otherwise.

Scheduling of posts does not replace a human. Scheduling posts helps with time management and should be used for that purpose. When there is limited time, the time should be spent interacting with fans which is where the scheduling comes into play. If the post is scheduled then time opens up for the interaction. Pointless to post and not interact with fans.

How do I Schedule a Facebook Post

2. Year: Click on the clock symbol at the bottom far left. “+ Add year” appears. Add the year from the drop down. There is a scroll down as you can back date content.

3. Month: Click on the clock symbol again and ”+ Add month” appears. Click that and the month drop down appears. Choose the month from the scroll down.

4. Day: Click the clock symbol again and “+ Add day” appears. Click that and the date drop down appears. It appears as numeric days in the calendar and not days of the week. Once you add the date, the Post in the far right goes from Post to Schedule.

5. Hour: Click on the clock symbol again and “+ Add hour” appears. Click on this and the hour drop down appears. Add the hour you wish to have the post scheduled for.

6. Minute: Click again on the clock symbol and “+ Add minute” appears. Click on this and the drop down appears in 10 minute increments. There is discrepancy here as Facebook says that they are in 15 minute intervals. There is not the functionaliy to override and manually put in a minute.

7. Review you posting for accuracy and click on Schedule.

You can month and year stamp your posts without scheduling as the scheduling does not appear until you add the date field. This is useful for those who are managing their timeline and wish to month and year stamp previous postings. If you wish to date the posting, you can as well, and, if it is in the past, it will appear immediately.

How to Unschedule a Scheduled Facebook Post

Changed your mind? It is easy to unschedule.

1. If you have not hit schedule and received the “Your Post Has Been Scheduled Confirmation” you can simply click on each drop down field and scroll up to the top and select the –. This will delete the field.

2. If you have scheduled and received confirmation, all is not over. You can cancel in the activity log via the admin panel by selecting Manage (as seen here in the confirmation).

As you can see, these changes are not going to have much affect on the companies that have already been using a third party to manage their pages. This is really targeting the small business owners to try and balance out the playing field here a bit and promote more user interaction.

Small business owner? We want to hear from you! Will these new features have you spend more time on Facebook? Will you relinquish control and utilize the admin roles?

Join The Conversation

Thanks for the update on the new features. HOWEVER, this week I have discovered a major change on the 3 pages I manage. Facebook now lists the number of people who receive the post! AND, it does not go out to ALL of the people who have liked the site. In one case, there are 120 people who have Liked the page, for example. My post yesterday listed that 29 people received the post...and then the % is calculated.

Can you or anyone there explore this further and find out why this is done. The rumor I have heard is that FB will begin charging small biz owners and other Page owners for EACH post --- If we want it to go to everyone who has Liked the page.

I am a big fan of the admin roles. I have people who can change graphics or pages but I don't want them commenting or really interacting. However, the publishing feature is a bit too little too late in my opinion. From what I can tell, you can't schedule/change scheduling via the Pages app, which seems like a huge missing piece. I need to be able to do things on the go, which I can do through 3rd party apps.